SMITEFire Special Christmas Giveaway!

The Muppet Christmas Carol never fails to warm my heart. First, I love the muppets - where will you find a more colorful and charismatic group of characters? Their take on a Christmas Carol, which for my money is one of the greatest tales of Christmas as a celebration ever written, is both hilarious and very, very touching and moving. Tiny Tim's story always brings a tear to the eye. Fantastic performance by Michael Caine as well, genuinely underrated, that really captures the heart and soul of the tale. Recommend it to absolutely everyone.

One year for Christmas, my parents lost power for multiple weeks. While this doen't sound much like a fun Christmas story - and indeed there were definite downsides to it! - there were still many fond memories from this year.

The best part is where my mom had charged her laptop at work to bring home, and then we'd huddle near the gas fireplace and watch Christmas movies. Thus was born our tradition of watching "Elf" ever year at Christmas.

Here in Brazil we a have a local dessert called "doce de leite"; it is essentially a condensed milk cooked in pressure pot for some time (cooking time vary between family recipes). This was my 4th Christmas without grandma, the family matriarch. Since her passed away, we always tried to recreate her recipe, using her own old pressure pot and for 3 christmas we failed. Yesterday, we finally got it right and it brought back so many memories! We havent enjoyed christmas like that for a while!

For everyone who still misses someone during holidays: someday, you'll rejoice with memories and, at least for a while, the grief will go away and make room for a memory lane night - hopefully, with a side dish of a family recipe to warm everyone's heart!

Merry christmas everyone!